Living Buddhist Master to visit West Coast

Dhr. Seven, Kalyana, Seth Auberon, Wisdom Quarterly; Judith Levin; Gary Sanders

Golden Buddha, Thailand (travelblog.org)

  
Theravada Buddhist Dharma Master, Ajahn Jamnian (Jumnien), will be teaching two retreats in the US. 

The first is in the mountains above Los Angeles, on the beautiful Mt. Baldy. It begins Tuesday, June 11th and runs through the 13th. Prepare for three days in wooded mountains northeast of the city in the Angeles National Forest. Full fare is $250 ($180 days only with the option to camp nearby).

The second is in Olympia, Washington. It begins Monday, June 17th and runs through the 24th. This week-long meditation retreat will be nestled in beautiful, forested Millerslyvania State Park near Olympia. Full fare is $425. Registration, information, and talks are available at ForestRetreat.org.

In addition there will be a FREE day-long retreat on June 10th, 2013 with the ajahn (Thai senior teacher, from the Sanskrit acharya) at Ayodhya Thai Holistic Therapy at 1455 Indian Hill Blvd., on the far east end of Los Angeles County in Pomona 91767.

"I hope we get to see you at one of the events, [for] the longer you sit with him and listen to him stream (transmit) Dharma, the bigger the effect on your practice. He has been a life changing and lineage changing master for me." - Judith Levin

What's so special?

Wisdom Quarterly (COMMENTARY)

Ven. Ajahn Jamnian knows-and-sees

What could Levin possibly mean by "lineage changing" other than gotrabhu, a tangential reference to the stages of enlightenment? The Buddha taught that one who experiences liberating-insight experiences a "change-of-lineage." One enters the stream. That is, one goes from "ordinary uninstructed worlding" (putthujana) to "noble" liberated person (arya, aryan). Without changing labels, culture, or religious affiliation, one indeed becomes a practicing disciple (savaka, literally "hearer") of the Enlightened One.

• In search of Insight (Path Knowledges)

Famed American teacher Jack Kornfield (spiritrock.org) thought so highly of Ajahn Jamnian that he included him in his legendary book, Living Buddhist Masters (renamed Modern Buddhist Masters). We ask, How could a forest tradition monastic living today in the northeastern wilds of Thailand (Isan) have attained stream entry or more?

 

A better question might be, How could anyone other than a forest-dwelling wandering ascetic following in the footsteps of the Buddha attain and help other ordinary folk attain in the Kali Yuga (decadent Age of Destruction)?

  

The two preceding generations saw a resurgence in practice in Burma, Thailand, and Cambodia. While as Westerners we have been revering scholar-monks and their Western-style scholarship, particularly the Germans and British arriving in Sri Lanka the way the great commentator Buddhaghosa ("Ghost-of-the-Buddha"), some Theravada school practitioners lived a resurgence in authentic practice. 

 

Monastics retreated to the wilderness and applied the teachings. All the words are wonderful, but it is in the application of even the simplest teaching that the Buddha is honored for having taught. Burma's Pa Auk Sayadaw and Thailand's Ajahn Chah are two prominent examples. 

 

We guarantee the accomplishments and efficacy of the Sayadaw. But Ajahn Chah is much more famous thanks in large part to his expat Western students, who returned from the forest with settled hearts and a knowing in their eyes, a result of direct experience, Jack Kornfield being one such student.

 

So it seems impossibly fortunate that someone of that caliber is coming to Los Angeles. Who can pay any higher compliment to a Buddhist teacher today than to say that s/he has indeed practiced in line with the historical Buddha's instruction? Ajahn Jamnian is this caliber of teacher.